6 ms·

Everything's about luck. Are you smart? Luck. Are you good looking? Luck. Are you rich? Again, some combination of things that are all essentially about luck.

• TuringTest 5y ago
  That's not what the model says. It says that being smart and good looking do not have a large effect in the long term; having repeated streaks of luck do. (Being rich counts as having already had several lucky breaks, you or your family.)
  • kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    If being rich counts a already having had several lucky breaks, aren't they just presenting a circular conclusion? In the real world, opportunities can also be manufactured, increasing the odds to be lucky. I don't think the model from the article has that many interesting things to tell us.
    • TuringTest 5y ago
      "Being rich" doesn't appear as an input factor on the model, that's my interpretation. The paper describes how, assuming a meritocratic setup where everyone starts out the same, wealth accumulates as a function of repeated lucky events, largely unaffected by the particular talents of the individual. We all know that money makes money and the wealthy have a lot more ways of seizing opportunities than those without resources, using wealth as a leverage way more powerful than personal talent. Nevertheless, the model works as a thought experiment showing what would happen if everyone began from the same starting point; even in that case, talent would have little weight in how wealth accumulation would evolve.
      • kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        There was another experiment a while ago about songs becoming hits. Iirc they started with presenting random songs to users, but their "likes" could affect further suggestions. Then it also was random which songs ended up becoming hits. That seems like a much more interesting experiment, and in the real world, too. Also the "Matthew Effect" is well known. I find it very dangerous to latch onto such an experiment because it "feels right", though.
• esarbe 5y ago
  Yeah, this. People don't realize and don't want to realize how much of their success in life is based on pure, sheer luck. I'm not going to say that hard work is irrelevant, but it's very much overrated. Because you can work hard yourself to death and not get any penny to your name. Whereas if you luck out, you luck out - no hard work required. I guess that we - as narrative creatures - aim to have a satisfactory story to our lives. We that are successful want this success to be our own achievements, not the random fluctuation of chance. But human brains are very bad with randomness and so we see patterns; the people close to us are good and honest and hard working, no wonder they are rich and successful. They earned it! we think, not taking into consideration confirmation and selection bias. It's just a shame that we are also lead to believe the reverse is true. That poor person over there? He must be slacking off and is not putting in enough elbow grease - he deserves to be poor and miserable. Sometimes we're very bad at thinking.
  • refurb 5y ago
    Right, but everyone’s life is a roll of the dice. The only thing we can control is our own actions. Yes luck plays a big role, but it also plays a big role in getting cancer (genetics), but you can move the needle through your own actions.
  • deleted 5y ago
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• kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  So who deserves what? If you need brain surgery, you want a very good brain surgeon. Does it really matter to you if he was just lucky to become so good? Personally I would still be willing to pay more money to get the better surgeon, no matter HOW they became so good. Same for all other things. I want the best leader for my country. Does it matter if they are a good leader because they were lucky (born with intelligence, good education and so on)? No, all I care is that they are good, not why they are good. (Assuming all act morally - if the brain surgeon only got so good because he abducted people and experimented on their brains, I would not be OK with it).